Pigtail
by LucinaNemain
Summary: About pigtails and the scars they leave.


Harry is asleep in a dark room, face halfway buried in his arms. When the door opens and light from the hallway outside falls on his face, he stirs and awakens. Squinting, blinded by the sudden light and by lack of glasses, he looks over his shoulder but sees only a dark form in the doorway, no recognisable features but sheer size. That is however, in this case, enough.

"Uncle Vernon?" he mumbles.

His uncle doesn't respond, but strides into the room closely followed by a just slightly smaller silhouette; Dudley. As they advance on him, he rises to his elbows, worried by their silence. He does not get farther, his uncle is there, yanks the blanket away, and there is Dudley, heaving himself onto the bed, onto Harry. Straddling him, his enormous behind settles on the base of Harry's neck, effectively pinning him to the bed.

Harry wants to protest, to ask what they think they are doing, to say something, but his face is pressed down into the pillow, and he does not have time to find words anyway. As soon as Dudley is positioned, uncle Vernon grabs the hem of Harry's pyjama bottoms and pulls.

Gasping, Harry tries to break free, afraid now of what they will do to him. Dudley sits steady though, anchoring him as his behind is brusquely bared.

"What are you doing?" he tries to yell, but has trouble getting enough air, Dudley heavy on his back. What comes out of his mouth is more of a croak, and hopelessly muffled by the pillows.

Then his voice freezes in his throat as cold hands grabs his buttocks and pulls them apart. God, no. Merlin, no. They can't. Again, he struggles with all his might but only for a moment. Suddenly something icy cold is pressed against the very base of his spine, but no – not cold.

Harry screams as the pain hits him, the embers of his uncle's cigar being pressed against his tailbone. He screams as the fire seems to flare up his spine, down his legs. He screams until he has no air left, until he can no longer breathe. Only then does the pressure on his back disappear and he can catch his breath.

Had they ever talked about it later, Vernon would have stated he only grazed the boy with the embers, enough to burn the skin, no more. To Dudley, suddenly scared by what they were doing, the seconds his father pressed the cigar hard against his cousin's tailbone – long enough to put it out – would seem like minutes.

Harry would have no memories of how long the fire, the pain, lasted. Only of the sound of his own ragged breath as he stopped screaming. That relative silence he would remember, and the horrible relief he felt as he lay panting in the dark. Thank Merlin, oh God. Humiliated, he would realise he felt grateful to his uncle and cousin, for the fact that they hadn't raped him.

He got up the next morning after a painful, sleepless night. By then he had figured it out, remembering how his aunt had wailed about Dudley scarred for life. He'd realised what the burning was all about, and in some way he could see their point. Or if it was his shameful gratitude that made him never mention it.

For days he could not sit at all, for weeks not comfortably, but he tried not to fidget. With time, the burn healed, leaving a circular scar on the base of his spine.

Years later, his lover would ask him about that scar.

"Pigtail." he would answer.

"Who gave you a pigtail? Why?" his lover would ask, amused. Then, frowning: "And why didn't you remove it the normal way?"

"Dudley's pigtail."

His lover knew that story of course. Not, however, how Dudley growing a pigtail resulted in a scar on Harry's tailbone.

"He had it surgically removed, since they wouldn't let magic near him. And it left a scar. They decided I should have one too, since it was practically my fault."

By the continued frown on his lover's face, he would come to realise how bizarre that sounded. How he had just disregarded the events of that night, and seen his scar as an automatic result of Dudley's pigtail. He had never forgotten, of course. He could not forget that night, that pain, the terrifying moment before the pain, the one that left him relieved afterwards.

Vaguely uneasy about how he had never questioned the reasoning, wondering what else he had never questioned, he would shrug and look away.

"What did they do?"

"Burned me with a cigar."

At that, his lover would say nothing, only collect him in an embrace. After all, there was nothing to say to that. 


End file.
